Engineering education in sustainable development at Delft University of Technology Linda Kamp * Delft University of Technology, Technology Assessment, Faculty Technology, Policy and Management, Jaffalaan 5, NL2628BX Delft, The Netherlands Received 1 August 2005; accepted 1 November 2005 Available online 23 February 2006 Abstract Is technology hindering sustainable development or can it be used to stimulate sustainable development? It is becoming clearer that techno- logical innovation can be a useful tool for achieving sustainable development. That is, if the technologist is aware of the boundaries that should be considered when working in a sustainable way; and is knowledgeable about how to use the tools that can be used to work in a sustainable way. Therefore, making technology students aware of these boundaries and tools is an important educational task for universities. Such education should, in our view, include two subjects. (1) Giving them insight into the concepts of sustainable development. What is sustainable develop- ment? What are sustainability problems? What are the causes of these problems? Which strategies and approaches for solving them are avail- able? (2) Giving them insight into the technology development process. How does the technology development process work? Which factors influence and steer it? What is the influence of technology on society and on sustainable development? The Technology Assessment group at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands has developed several courses on the combination of these two subjects, integrating re- search results in the fields of sustainable development and technology dynamics. In this article the contents of these courses are described. Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Engineering education; Sustainable development; Education in sustainable development 1. Introduction In 1994, the University Council of Delft University of Technology adopted a new strategic vision. The University Board called this vision ‘Towards a new commitment’ [1]. Within this vision, the University Council emphasized the im- portance of sustainable development for Delft University of Technology. Furthermore, it was recognized that social skills of engineers should be better developed. They should be taught to look further than their own narrow technical field. This new strategic vision provided the opportunity for the development and offering of new courses on sustainable devel- opment. In 1998, the board of Delft University of Technology approved a proposal by the University Committee for Sustainable Development that consisted of three intercon- nected operations [2,3]: 1. Designing an elementary course ‘Technology in sustain- able development’ for all students of Delft University of Technology. 2. Intertwining the concept of sustainable development in all regular disciplinary courses, in such a way that it matches with the nature of each specific course. 3. Developing a possibility to graduate in a sustainable devel- opment specialization, within the framework of each faculty. In this way, all students would gain basic knowledge on sustainable development (operation 1), complemented by knowledge on how sustainability relates to their own disci- pline (operation 2). Furthermore, the students that wanted to gain more insight in sustainable development would have * Tel.: þ31 15 2786488. E-mail address: l.m.kamp@tbm.tudelft.nl 0959-6526/$ - see front matter Ó 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2005.11.036 Journal of Cleaner Production 14 (2006) 928e931 www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro